Frontline Toronto youth mental health workers vote 100% in favour of strike action if a fair deal can’t be reached

Health Care

TORONTO – Workers at YouthLink, a mental health agency that helps roughly 3,000 Torontonians aged 12 to 24 each year, are unanimous in their belief that youth in crisis need consistent care provided by fairly paid workers. YouthLink’s clinical counsellors, child and youth workers, residential counsellors, outreach workers, shelter workers, student development workers and administrative…

Federal healthcare funds must be invested in paramedics and the broader public healthcare system: CUPE Paramedics

Health Care, Paramedics

TORONTO, ON – The $74 billion ten-year healthcare deal between the Ontario and the federal government is a positive step but the funds must be immediately used to improve paramedic services and bolster the public health care system, says Niko Georgiadis, the chair of the CUPE Ontario Ambulance Committee that represents the majority of paramedics…

Legislation expanding private surgeries and procedures will harm Ontario patients, cost more, bleed staff away from public hospitals and leave them with the most complex cases: CUPE

Governmental, Health Care, Solidarity

TORONTO, ON – Ontario PC government legislation tabled today that will expand private and for-profit surgeries and procedures isn’t smart spending but costly policy that will increase costs, waits and death rates, lower patient outcomes and bleed scarce staff from public hospitals, says Michael Hurley president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.  “Throwing huge…

OPEN LETTER RE: Ontario’s Health System at Risk

Health Care, Solidarity

                                                 The Right Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau                                                                                January 24, 2023 The Honourable Chrystia Freeland House of Commons, Canada OPEN LETTER RE: Ontario’s Health System at Risk  Dear Prime Minister Trudeau and Deputy Prime…

“Greedy and hypocritical”: Company owned by a pension plan is taking away its own workers’ pension plan

Health Care, OMERS, Pensions

TORONTO – DynaLIFE Labs, a company contracted by the Alberta government to privatize health care services, is trying to take away a pension plan from its employees. The twist? DynaLIFE’s majority shareholder is the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), a pension plan serving over half a million Canadians. In 2022, Alberta’s UCP government awarded…

CUPE Ontario pledges cross-sector support for the fightback against Ford’s plans for health care privatization

Health Care, Solidarity

TORONTO – CUPE Ontario has pledged its full support to the coalition of five major health unions, including CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE), as they gear up for a province-wide campaign of resistance to the Ford government’s “three-step plan” for privatizing hospital care services. “Our union will raise its voice on behalf of…

Ford’s plan to expand private clinics in Ontario will cost patients dearly, risk lives and significantly worsen staffing shortages, healthcare unions say

Health Care, Solidarity

TORONTO – Five major Ontario healthcare unions are calling on the Ford government to not move forward with its plan to siphon provincial funding from public hospital care and hand it to private, for-profit surgical clinics, a risky venture that will cost Ontarians dearly and damage access to public care. The unions – CUPE/OCHU, Ontario…